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Water Institute welcomes new managing director

Friday, August 12, 2011

Last month, the Water Institute (WI) welcomed Kevin Boehmer as its inaugural managing director. Kevin has more than 20 years of professional experience in the environment and water sectors as a researcher, trainer, consultant and manager.

I’m very pleased to be joining the Water Institute,” Kevin says. “I look forward to working closely with Dave Rudolph, WI’s executive director, in creating a vibrant network for collaboration across all six faculties.

Kevin is a Waterloo Region native and obtained his Bachelor of Environmental Studies in honours geography and his Master of Arts in regional planning and resource development from the University of Waterloo.

After obtaining his undergraduate degree, Kevin began his professional career administering a river water quality monitoring network at the Canada Centre for Inland Waters (CCIW) in Burlington, Ontario. Later on, he spent several years working for CH2M HILL, one of North America’s largest environmental engineering firms. At CH2M HILL, Kevin was involved in a wide range of projects including ground and surface water contamination/remediation assessments and water supply studies.

In 1990, Kevin returned to obtain his Master’s degree and completed his research in Indonesia as part of the joint Waterloo/York/Dalhousie Bali Sustainable Development Project, where he investigated links between traditional ecological knowledge (including water management) and “modern” development planning. Following his Master’s work, Kevin returned to CH2M HILL where he focused on integrated watershed management planning, including directing several (sub) watershed studies within the Grand River watershed.

In 1996, Kevin returned to Indonesia as an independent consultant and managed several water resources/environmental management capacity building projects funded by various bi-lateral (eg, Canada, Japan) and multi-lateral (eg, World Bank) institutions.

In 1999, Kevin returned to Canada where he spent the next eleven years working for the Canadian Standards Association (CSA) in Toronto. At the CSA, Kevin was director of the sustainability standards program. His team was responsible for developing national and bi-national sustainability standards (in areas such as sustainable products, social responsibility, sustainable forest management, carbon capture and storage) through multi-stakeholder technical committees involving government, industry, academia and civil society.

In addition, Kevin also served as the International Secretary for the ISO Technical Committee on Environmental Management responsible for the development of the ISO 14000 series of international environmental and greenhouse gas management standards.

After commuting from ​Kitchener to Toronto for the past eleven years, Kevin is enjoying a shorter drive to work and a warm welcome from the University of Waterloo community.

Everyone has been so accommodating since my arrival and it’s made my job a whole lot easier.